by Jon Weisman
It was October, it was a World Series, it was a Dodger hero gone far too soon.
The year was 1978, and the timing was similar to 2024 with the passing on Tuesday of 63-year-old Fernando Valenzuela. In 1978, it was 49-year-old Jim Gilliam.
Already, the two players were linked in Dodger history, as the only two whose jersey numbers were retired without induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. While Dodger fans of every generation know Valenzuela’s saga, far fewer today know why Gilliam’s life and career resonated so deeply.
Gilliam, nicknamed “Junior” by those who knew him and “The Devil” for those who really knew him, debuted with the 1946 Baltimore Elite Giants at age 17. Five years later, he found himself with the Dodger Minor League team that Jackie Robinson made famous, the Montreal Royals. One day shy of Robinson’s sixth MLB anniversary, on April 14, 1953, Gilliam officially followed Robinson to Brooklyn as the Dodgers’ leadoff batter and starting second baseman on Opening Day. Hitting .278 with a .383 on-base percentage and a Major League-leading 17 triples, along with 100 walks against 38 strikeouts, Gilliam won the National League Rookie of the Year Award.
For the purposes of this story, we’ll gloss over a multifaceted career from beginning to end — well, the first end. Gilliam retired after the 1964 season, having compiled 1,866 hits (1,734 with the Dodgers). The next April, he took the field as the Dodgers’ first-base coach … only to unretire at the end of May to fill a gaping hole in the Dodger infield. Just shy of his 37th birthday, Gilliam started all seven games of the World Series, making the defensive play of Game 7 — and therefore, the year — to preserve Sandy Koufax’s triumphant shutout.
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Gilliam came back for one swan-song season, retiring for good in following the 1966 World Series, after which he slid right back into coaching. There he remained, a mentor for the generation of Dodgers who sparked Los Angeles to NL pennants in 1974, 1977 and 1978.
But as the ’78 postseason got underway, Gilliam was at Daniel Freeman Hospital (now Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center), having suffered a brain hemorrhage in September. For those at Dodger Stadium, Junior was absent physically but extremely present spiritually.
“It seems like all the things he preached and practiced to us became more vivid when he was no longer there to see us do those things,” outfielder Lee Lacy told Scott Ostler of the Los Angeles Times.
In the gloaming of Oct. 7 at Dodger Stadium, Bill Russell’s single scored Ron Cey from second base in the bottom of the 10th inning of National League Championship Series Game 4 to give the Dodgers a 4–3 victory and the NL pennant.
The following night, October 8, Gilliam passed away.
By October 10, the Dodgers made the decision to retire his №19, taking the field in Game 1 of the World Series with the number represented in a patch on their uniform sleeves. Davey Lopes, who had said before the game that “it’s going to be very difficult not to keep thinking about him,” homered in the second and fourth innings, driving in five runs in an 11–5 Dodger win.
Such was Gilliam’s legacy that on the next day, Oct. 11, members of both the Dodgers and Yankees were among 2,000 mourners at Trinity Baptist Church to pay their respects at Gilliam’s funeral. Reggie Jackson, the villain of the 1977 World Series as far as Dodger fans were concerned, joined Lopes and Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda to deliver eulogies.
A singular talent, Gilliam became a singular figure in the pantheon of Dodger retired numbers until joined by Valenzuela in 2023, and now the linkage is almost too much to be believed.
Game 6 of the 1978 World Series against the Yankees took place on what would have been Gilliam’s 50th birthday.
Game 6 of the 2024 World Series against the Yankees, if necessary, would take place on what would have been Valenzuela’s 64th birthday.
How Gilliam’s retired No. 19 bookends Valenzuela’s retired No. 34 for the Dodgers was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.